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 Words: Mav
Pix: Asha Tank
SWM is proud to present to you the first of our Sleeping Beauties, the side of the mag more pleasant to look at than sweaty bands or the writers.
Asha Tank has been modelling and performing extensively across the UK since 2002.
Currently she is working as a full-time performer (specialising in stilt walking, angle grinding, fire eating, belly dancing, snake dancing and much more), whilst also running her own web design & photography business (www.ashatank.com), the Dark Arts site (www.darkarts.org.uk), she also runs local club event Devils Night (www.myspace.com/devilsnight_stoke) with Sleepwalkers Magazine’s own agony uncle Wolf.
As if that isn’t enough, she’s doing it all whilst studying for a degree in Photography too!
Unsurprisingly she doesn’t model as much anymore, and only very occasionally can be found doing some alternative hairdressing. I’m glad we could coax her out to be the face of Sleepwalkers this month. I had a chat with her to find out a little behind the Asha Empire.
(SWM)What made you go into business for yourself?
(A)I think the first real business I started was “Devilish Do’s” back in February 2002, which was mainly a result of me braiding hair for a few friends. This lead to more people asking about crazy hair extensions, and before I knew it I didn’t need a part-time job whilst on my first degree course. Devilish Do’s has long since been passed onto my former business partner Kelly Lees, since she has more time to devote to it. I still do dread extensions and real dreads for people on the odd occasion under the name of “Attitude Hair”, but I don’t really promote it as a business anymore as I have too many other projects to concentrate on now!
I’ve been dabbling in web design ever since studying Multimedia Graphics at university – photography naturally became an extension of that, and I’d always been keen on the subject since I took it at A-level. So, a few months ago I took the plunge and decided to go back to university and get a degree in Photography too.
I’ve also recently launched my own design business, I just figured it was about time I did it officially and put all my work together to display it properly. I’ve been promoting club nights ever since my days as a DJ – some of you might remember goth/industrial night “Electric Head” at Chico’s/Fusion, and the “Toxic” student nights at the Sugarmill. As well as Devils Night, I also do the design work and internet promotion for local nights ‘Bloody Sunday’ and ‘Bitten’… Devil’s Night is definitely more work with arranging dancers and performances though!
I started Dark Arts when I got fed up with listing on multiple ‘model profile’ sites and not getting any work. It’s now the largest alternative directory of talented people in the UK. I always intended to run it as a non-profit organisation though, and not an agency so I’m really happy with the outcome – I’m really happy it’s done so well and new members still pop up all the time.
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I became a performer partly through luck and partly by accident. I’m pretty much self-taught too. I started off as a fledgling alternative model back in 2002, and that in turn led to me podium and cage dancing in a few London clubs. I continued podium dancing for various clubs for a few years – and it wasn’t til 2006 that I learnt how to walk on stilts. That gave me a taste for more, and pretty soon I was playing with sparks and fire!
I’ve built up a lot of contacts through Dark Arts over the years so I’m lucky in that respect.
I love to entertain, and although I’d love to solely make a living as a performer it’s not always regular work so it helps to have backup businesses!
(SWM)How has living in Stoke affected your work?
(A)Well, everyone likes to moan about Stoke – but there are worse places you could be!
I don’t drive yet, so living somewhere with easy transport links has always made things easier.
The alternative scene is really quite huge here, so it’s no wonder the majority of websites and photo shoots I do for clients have a darker edge to them. I’ve never advertised as only designing ‘alternative’ websites, things just seem to have ended up that way naturally.
I doubt so many of my business ventures would have been half as successful in other parts of the country. Although it does help to know a lot of people, and I’ve been in Stoke longer than anywhere else!
(SWM)Are there any alternative or mainstream icons that have inspired what you are doing?
(A)Nope. None at all! I guess that makes me my own person.
(SWM) Do you have any advice for anyone going into a photography, art or modelling career?
(A)If you want to try something new, just give it a go really – you’ll never know if you don’t try! I mainly concentrate on what I’m good at and where my skills are strongest, but everyone has to start somewhere.
A lot of what I do is self taught, because at the time there wasn’t really any help out there.
Now there’s tonnes of sites to help people get into modelling (like Dark Arts for example!), not to mention countless circus schools and performance workshops popping up all over the place.
On the business side of things I can’t recommend the Princes Trust enough – they helped me get my hair extensions business off the ground years ago, and more recently my design business too.
It’s a really cheesy thing to say, but if you want something bad enough only you can make it happen. I’m living proof of that - I’ve come a long way from the shy bookworm I used to be in school!
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